RENAISSANCE TO RUBENS
When the Raphael cartoons first came to Brussels the new method was a
little difficult for the tapissier. His hand had been accustomed to
another manner. He had, too, been allowed much liberty in his
translations--if one may so call the art of reproducing a painted
model on the loom. He might change at will the colour of a drapery,
even the position of a figure, and, most interesting fact, he had on
hand a supply of stock figures that he might use at will, making for
himself suitable combination. The figures of Adam and Eve gave a
certain cachet to hangings not entirely secular and these were slipped
in when a space needed filling. There were also certain lovely ladies
who might at one time play the role of attendant at a feast _al
fresco_, at another time a character in an allegory. The weaver's hand
was a little conventional when he began to execute the Raphael
cartoons, but during the three years required for their execution he
lost all restriction and was ready for the freer manner.
[Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA
First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid]
[Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA
First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid]
It must not be supposed the Flemish artists were content to let the
Italians entirely usurp them in the drawing of cartoons. The lovely
refinement of the Bruges school having been thrust aside, the Fleming
tried his hand at the freer method, not imitating its classicism but
giving his themes a broader treatment. The Northern temperament
failed to grasp the spirit of the South, and figures grew gross and
loose in the exaggerated drawing. Borders, however, show no such
deterioration; the attention to detail to which the old school was
accustomed was here continued and with good effect. No stronger
evidence is needed than some of these half savage portrayals of life
in the Sixteenth Century to declare the classic method an exotic in
Flanders.
But with the passing of the old Gothic method, there was little need
for other cartoonists than the Italian, so infinitely able and
prolific were they. Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Paolo Veronese, Giulio
Romano, these are among the artists whose work went up to Brussels
workshops and to other able looms of the day. We can fancy the fair
face of Andrea's wife being lovingly caressed by the weaver's fingers
in his work; we can imagine the beauties of Titian, the sumptuousness
of Veronese's feasts, and the fat materialism of Giulio Romano's heavy
cherubs, all contributing to the most beautiful of textile arts.
Still earlier, Mantegna supplied a series of idealised Pompeian
figures exquisitely composed, set in a lacy fancy of airy
architectural detail, in which he idealised all the gods of Olympus.
Each fair young goddess, each strong and perfect god, stood in its
particular niche and indicated its _penchant_ by a tripod, a peacock,
an apple or a caduceus, as clue to the proper name. Such airy beauty,
such dainty conception, makes of the gods rulers of aesthetics, if not
of fate. This series of Mantegna was the inspiration two centuries
later of the _Triumphs of the Gods_, and similar hangings of the
newly-formed Gobelins.
Giulio Romano drew, among other cartoons, a set of _Children Playing_,
which were the inspiration later at the Gobelins for Lebrun's _Enfants
Jardiniers_.
As classic treatment was the mode in the Sixteenth Century, so classic
subject most appealed. The loves and adventures of gods and heroes
gave stories for an infinite number of sets. As it was the fashion to
fill a room with a series, not with miscellaneous and contrasting
bits, several tapestries similar in subject and treatment were a
necessity. The gods were carried through their adventures in varying
composition, but the borders in all the set were uniform in style and
measurement.
In those prolific days, when ideas were crowding fast for expression,
the border gave just the outlet necessary for the superfluous designs
of the artist. He was wont to plot it off into squares with such
architectonic fineness as Mina da Fiesole might have used, and to make
of each of these a picture or a figure so perfect that in itself it
would have sufficient composition for an entire tapestry. All honour
to such artists, but let us never once forget that without the skill
and talent of the master-weaver these beauties would never have come
down to us.
[Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA
First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid]
[Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA
First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid]
The collection of George Blumenthal, Esquire, of New York, contains as
beautiful examples of Sixteenth Century composition and weaving as
could be imagined. Two of these were found in Spain--the country
which has ever hoarded her stores of marvellous tapestries. They
represent the story of _Mercury_. (Frontispiece.) The cartoon is
Italian, and so perfect is its drawing, so rich in invention is the
exquisite border, that the name of Raphael is half-breathed by the
thrilled observer. But if the artist is not yet certainly identified,
the name of the weaver is certain, for on the galloon he has left his
sign. It is none other than the celebrated Wilhelm de Pannemaker.
In addition to this is the shield and double B of the Brussels
workshop, which after 1528 was a requirement on all tapestries beyond
a certain small size. In 1544 the Emperor Charles V made a law that
the mark or name of the weaver and the mark of his town must be put in
the border. It was this same Pannemaker of the Blumenthal tapestries
who wove in Spain the _Conquest of Tunis_ for Charles V. (Plate facing
page 62.)
Mr. Blumenthal's tapestries must have carried with them some such
contract for fine materials as that which attended the execution of
the _Tunis_ set, so superb are they in quality. Indeed, gold is so
lavishly used that the border seems entirely made of it, except for
the delicate figures resting thereon. It is used, too, in an unusual
manner, four threads being thrown together to make more resplendent
the weave.
The beauty of the cartoon as a picture, the decorative value of the
broad surfaces of figured stuffs, the marvellous execution of the
weaver, all make the value of these tapestries incalculable to the
student and the lover of decorative art. Mr. Blumenthal has graciously
placed them on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York. Fortunate they who can absorb their beauty.
That treasure-house in Madrid which belongs to the royal family
contains a set which bears the same ear-marks as the Blumenthal
tapestries. It is the set called _The Loves of Vertumnus and Pomona_.
(Plates facing pages 72, 73, 74 and 75.) Here is the same manner of
dress, the same virility, the same fulness of decoration. Yet the
Mercury is drawn with finer art.
The delight in perfected detail belonging to the Italian school of
artists resulted in an arrangement of _grotesques_. Who knows that the
goldsmith's trade was not responsible for these tiny fantastics, as so
many artists began as apprentices to workers in gold and silver? This
evidence of talented invention must be observed, for it set the
fashion for many a later tapestry, notably the _Grotesque Months_ of
the Seventeenth Century. Mingled with verdure and fruit, it is seen in
work of the Eighteenth Century. But in its original expression is it
the most talented. There we find that intellectual plan of design,
that building of a perfect whole from a subtle combination of
absolutely irreconcilable and even fabulous objects. Yet all is done
with such beguiling art that both mind and eye are piqued and pleased
with the impossible blending of realism and imagination.
Bacchiacca drew a filigree of attenuated fancies, threw them on a
ground of single delicate colour, and sent them for weave to the
celebrated masters, John Rost and Nicholas Karcher. (Plates facing
pages 84 and 85.) These men at that time (1550) had set their
Flemish looms in Italy.
[Illustration: TAPESTRIES FOR HEAD AND SIDE OF BED
Renaissance designs. Royal Collection of Madrid]
[Illustration: THE STORY OF REBECCA
Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor
Carey, Esq., Boston]
And so it came that the Renaissance swept all before it in the world
of tapestry. More than that, with the increase of culture and of
wealth, with the increased mingling of the peoples of Europe after the
raid of Charles V into Italy, the demand for tapestries enormously
increased. They were wanted for furnishing of homes, they were wanted
as gifts--to brides, to monarchs, to ambassadors. And they were wanted
for splendid decoration in public festivals. They had passed beyond
the stage of rarity and had become almost as much a matter of course
as clothing.
Brussels being in the ascendency as a producer, the world looked to
her for their supply, and thereby came trouble. More orders came than
it was possible to fill. The temptation was not resisted to accept
more work than could be executed, for commercialism has ever a hold.
The result was a driving haste. The director of the ateliers forced
his weavers to quick production. This could mean but one thing, the
lessening of care in every department.
Gradually it came about that expedition in a tapissier, the ability to
weave quickly, was as great a desideratum as fine work. Various other
expedients were resorted to beside the Sixteenth Century equivalent of
"Step lively." Large tapestries were not set on a single loom, but
were woven in sections, cunningly united when finished. In this manner
more men could be impressed into the manufacture of a single piece. A
wicked practice was introduced of painting or dyeing certain woven
parts in which the colours had been ill-selected.
All these things resulted in constantly increasing restrictions by the
guild of tapissiers and by order of royal patrons. But fraud is hard
to suppress when the animus of the perpetrator is wrong. Laws were
made to stop one fault after another, until in the end the weavers
were so hampered by regulations that work was robbed of all enthusiasm
or originality.
It was at this time that Brussels adopted the low-warp loom. In other
words, after a brilliant period of prolific and beautiful production,
Brussels began to show signs of deterioration. Her hour of triumph was
past. It had been more brilliant than any preceding, and later times
were never able to touch the same note of purity coupled with
perfection. The reason for the decline is known, but reasons are of
scant interest in the face of the deplorable fact of decadence.
The Italian method of drawing cartoons was adopted by the Flemish
cartoonists at this time, but as it was an adoption and not a natural
expression of inborn talent, it fell short of the high standard of the
Renaissance. But that is not to say that we of to-day are not ready to
worship the fruit of the Italian graft on Flemish talent. A tapestry
belonging to the Institute of Art in Chicago well represents this
hybrid expression of drawing. (Plate facing page 78.) The principal
figures are inspired by such as are seen in the _Mercury_ of Mr.
Blumenthal's collection, or the _Vertumnus and Pomona_ series, but
there the artist stopped and wandered off into his traditional
Flemish landscape with proper Flemings in the background dressed in
the fashion of the artist's day.
[Illustration: BRUSSELS TAPESTRY. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Weaver, Jacques Geubels. Institute of Art, Chicago]
[Illustration: MEETING OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
Brussels Tapestry. Woven by Gerard van den Strecken. Cartoon
attributed to Rubens]
The border was evidently inspired by Raphael's classic figures and
arabesques, but the column of design is naively broken by the far
perspective of a formal garden. The Italian cartoonist would have
built his border, figure and arabesque, one above another like a
fantastic column (_vide_ Mr. Blumenthal's _Mercury_ border). The
Fleming saw the intricacy, the multiplied detail, but missed the
intellectual harmony. But, such trifles apart, the Flemish examples of
this style that have come to us are thrilling in their beauty of
colour, and borders such as this are an infinite joy. This tapestry
was woven about the last quarter of the Sixteenth Century by a weaver
named Jacques Geubels of Brussels, who was employed by Carlier, a
merchant of Antwerp.
As the fruit of the Renaissance graft on Flanders coarsened and
deteriorated, a new influence arose in the Low Countries, one that was
bound to submerge all others. Rubens appeared and spread his great
decorative surfaces before eyes that were tired of hybrid design. This
great scene-painter introduced into all Europe a new method in his
voluptuous, vigorous work, a method especially adapted to tapestry
weaving. It is not for us to quarrel with the art of so great a
master. The critics of painting scarce do that; but in the lesser art
of tapestry the change brought about by his cartoons was not a happy
one.
His great dramatic scenes required to be copied directly from the
canvas, no liberty of line or colour could be allowed the weaver. In
times past, the tapissier--with talent almost as great as that of the
cartoonist--altered at his discretion. Even he to whom the Raphael
cartoons were entrusted changed here and there the work of the master.
But now he was expected to copy without license for change. In other
words, the time was arriving when tapestries were changing from
decorative fabrics into paintings in wool. It takes courage to avow a
distaste for the newer method, seeing what rare and beautiful hangings
it has produced. But after a study of the purely decorative hangings
of Gothic and Renaissance work, how forced and false seem the later
gods. The value of the tapestries is enormous, they are the work of
eminent men--but the heart turns away from them and revels again in
the Primitives and the Italians of the Cinque Cento.
Repining is of little avail. The mode changes and tastes must change
with it. If the gradual decadence after the Renaissance was
deplorable, it was well that a Rubens rose in vigour to set a new and
vital copy. To meet new needs, more tones of colour and yet more, were
required by the weaver, and thus came about the making of woven
pictures.
As one picture is worth many pages of description, it were well to
observe the examples given (plate facing page 79) of the superb set of
_Antony and Cleopatra_, a series of designs attributed to Rubens,
executed in Brussels by Gerard van den Strecken. This set is in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.